We received this product at no cost in exchange for our honest review. All opinions expressed are solely mine.
You all ~ the wait for All About Reading Level 1 program has been so amazingly worth it. We loved the All About Reading Level Pre-1 program and this is a wonderful next step in the reading process with Kaleb!

Program Basics

All About Reading Level 1 is a program for beginning readers. It picks up where the Pre-1 reading program ends ~ when children know their uppercase and lowercase letters as well as letter sounds and are ready to put the sounds together to make words. If you aren’t sure where to start your child, you can use the Reading Readiness Checklist to help you decide.

All About Reading focuses on phonological awareness, decoding skills, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and lots and lots of reading practice. Similar to the other programs from All About Learning Press, the Teacher’s Manual includes step-by-step directions, so there is no guesswork in what you need for each lesson or how to teach the concepts covered.

Each of the 49 lessons include hands-on practice using letter tiles, word cards, fun games, and activity sheets to go along with the day’s lesson. Lessons can be tailored to meet the needs of your child ~ review concepts as often as you need to in order to know that they are being retained.

{playing letter sound bingo}

Each lesson takes about 20 minutes to work through and then another 20 minutes of reading to your child is recommended. We usually divide up our time and read at different points during the day, instead of doing it all in one block of time.

Sight words are incorporated in to the program {so far Kaleb has learned ‘the’ and ‘a’}. They are treated as ‘Rule Breakers’ and given special treatment. :) Kaleb has loved this part of the program, to the point that he came running into my bedroom early one morning and woke me up when he found ‘the’ on something that he was playing with ~ ‘It’s a rule breaker!!!’

And the moment you want to do a happy dance {and actually do??}. When your child picks up a book, sits down with you and reads a real, honest-to-goodness story to you for the very first time. It just makes a mommy’s heart happy and there is much rejoicing to do!

I have also been using the reading program with Zachary {2nd grade} to help increase his reading fluency. Reading has never been a favorite part of his day, but his fluency has already greatly improved in the weeks that we’ve used it and it’s also built up his confidence in his reading abilities. He’s on the ‘fast track’ through the program, but part of his motivation has been seeing his younger brother start doing things that he was more recently complaining about {grins}.

Quick Tip: If you currently use any of the All About Spelling programs, the letter tiles are the same, so you may only need a few additional components to complete the kit.

A Few More Thoughts…

One thing that we all look at is the initial price of this children’s reading program, and while it is a bit more, it truly is worth it. Here are a few of my thoughts on it:

The bulk of the components are non-consumable {only the Activity Book and the smiling star stickers cannot be used again}. This means that you can use the program with children coming up through the ranks or eventually re-sell it to another mom.

The program is completely laid out and lessons are scripted, so you can just relax and not worry about planning!

Minimal prep-work. The word cards are perforated, but need to be torn apart and the letter tiles need to be assembled with magnets. Once that is done, you can grab your manual and go.

The ‘Go Ahead and Use It One-Year Guarantee’. You and your child have a full year to try out the program! If you find that the curriculum does not meet your needs, simply return the materials at any time within one year of purchase for a full refund of your purchase price.

I can honestly tell you all that we have all of the products from All About Reading and All About Spelling, use them daily, and love them tremendously. Their curriculum is one of the first that really got me excited about teaching and I KNOW that they are getting solid teaching using the programs!

We received this product at no cost in exchange for our honest review. All opinions expressed are solely mine.

A little over a month ago we started working ‘full-time’ on the All About Reading Level Pre-1. I had been anxiously waiting for the release of the program for many months and was really excited to see the completed product.

Why? Because I had fun helping create the ABC crafts for the program!! Last fall, I was sent some sneak peeks of the rhymes included with All About Reading Level Pre-1 and helped put crafts together that went specifically along with the rhymes.

Kaleb and I had fun ‘testing’ out many of the crafts in December, but I can honestly say they are MUCH more fun when we get to do them along with the actual reading program itself!

This reading program for preschool and kindergarten age children focuses on the “Big Five Skills” or five skills that are important for children to have in place before they begin to read. Those five are letter knowledge {recognizing letters and knowing names}, phonological awareness {hearing and identifying parts of words}, print awareness {knowing text has meaning}, listening comprehension, and motivation to read.

All About Reading Level Pre-1 includes an in-depth Teacher’s Guide that walks you through the “Big Five Skills”, providing tips for each lesson in the program along with step-by-step instructions for each letter lesson. The lessons walk through the alphabet letter by letter in ABC order starting with uppercase letters and then move to lowercase letters.

Lessons include poem readings, an ABC craft focused on the letter your child is learning, special games, and many additional activities to do together. There are go-along picture and activity cards that are used with the lessons as well as audio books and a cd-rom too. You can view sample lessons at the bottom of the All About Reading Level Pre-1 page.

There will be future levels of the All About Reading program coming too! The next level is scheduled to release in June of 2011.

My Thoughts

It’s probably no surprise that we are loving the program! One of the biggest hits of all has been including the Ziggy the Zebra puppet in all that we are doing! When Kaleb has his ‘school time’ he knows exactly where the our reading bag is, grabs it and waits for me in ‘our chair’ to do his school time.

Although we’d already worked on quite a few of the letter crafts, Kaleb was even more excited doing them this time around because they tied into something that we had read together and were ‘learning’. One of the biggest hits has been the go-along activities and picture cards that we use with each lesson {part of both packages}.

The ABC crafts are simple to do also {yes, they were planned that way!!}. The majority of the items used in the crafts are things that can be found easily in your house or without difficulty at your local store {yarn, glue, tinfoil, construction paper, crayons, watercolors, salt, etc…}. I put together a basket with all of the supplies that were needed and pull it out when we are working on the letter crafts.

We didn’t have anything like the All About Reading Level Pre-1 to use with our older three children {otherwise known as ‘winging it’}. I pieced together things for them and while they have all learned to read, I LOVE the simplicity of the program and the fact that it is all put together in one place for me to quickly gather and use. The only consumable part of the program is the ABC craft book, so it can be used again with younger children, or multiple children if you want to purchase an additional craft book.

Disclaimer: Some posts on this blog contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission whenever a product is purchased through these links. Occasionally, I receive products in exchange for a review or giveaway post. All opinions expressed on Homeschool Creations are solely my own, and I only suggest products or services that we personally use or I believe will be helpful to my readers.

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